Disclaimer: The Thunderbird Universe and all the characters I use in the story belong to Gerry Anderson. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and no money is made with this fanfic.

A tag to 'Flickering Lights' (you might not understand this if you haven't read it). John's POV.

I don't even like this story, but I couldn't get it out of my head. Maybe now that it's out of my system, I will be able to focus on something else. I haven't been in the mood to write recently, fanfiction-wise. Where are the plotbunnies and the bursts of inspiration when you need them?
As always, my thanks go to Pen for proofreading.

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Through the Eyes of a Brother
by kaeera

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I'm not usually one for dramatics, but I can safely say that the day I saw my brother balancing on the edge of a seven storey building was the worst of my life.

Not that I'm not used to seeing my brothers in danger – I mean, come on; we are International Rescue! – and I've gotten quite used to it. Kind of. It's always a shock, and it scares the hell out of me, but at least I know how to deal with it. Suck up the pain, the fear, the anxiety and use them to your advantage.

What I'm definitely not used to is seeing one of my brothers trying to voluntarily kill himself. You know, like in suicide. Topping oneself. Answering the last call. Going off to join the angels. Terminal sedation. Self-destruction. Call it whatever you want, it doesn't make it any nicer. It's not a thing I have ever contemplated, and up until that day, I had been under the impression that this was the case for my brothers as well.

Well, that idea was snuffed out pretty quickly when I Gordon escaped from us and nearly got himself killed. For a short while, I actually believed that...no, I don't want to go there. Those minutes were hell. How do people deal with it when their relatives try to commit suicide? How can anybody deal with it?

And I certainly didn't expect that to happen on a rescue that had been smooth up to that pint; that had come so close to finishing that Scott was already wrapping things up. But then the call came and he sent us – Virgil and me – into the building to look for Gordon. And then we found him, only to have him bolt. From us. In panicked fear.

We were already freaked out enough by the fact that he hadn't been replying his comm, and that the last we had heard was garbled nonsense. This topped it. I had never seen my brother behave that way; Gordon, who faced the greatest danger with a smile on his face, that very Gordon, running away from us, too afraid to even look back.

We managed to reach him on the stairway, but he attacked us (and boy, he's got a mean right hook) and got loose again. Virgil cursed a blue streak, whereas I grew silent and worried. Something was wrong and I had no idea what the hell it was. I had seen enough people with head wounds to know how confused they could get; but that didn't explain why he wasn't recognising us. Head wounds make you sluggish and confused, not rabid!

"Dammit, at that rate he's going to hurt himself!" Virgil panted beside me, while we scrambled up the stairway. "Do you think he knows that it's us?"

"No idea," I skidded around yet another turn. It seemed as if Gordon had chosen the roof as an escape route. "The lighting conditions were pretty bad. Maybe he didn't see us properly?"

"But what had him so scared?"

I frowned, thinking back to the moment we had first seen Gordon on the corridor. I remembered the relief I had felt when I saw him, but that relief quickly turned to confusion when Virgil's shout didn't prompt the expected reaction. Instead of turning to greet us, he had frozen – and then bolted, like a scared animal.

Virgil and I reacted on instinct – must have been years of training as older brothers, if it escapes, then follow, or you'll never catch the culprit – and raced after him. Unfortunately, Gordon hadn't taken it well. When we stumbled into the staircase and I was able to reach him, he spun around and attacked me in a mad frenzy. I was so surprised that I didn't do anything. Gordon punched me in the gut and then Virgil was there, pinning him down.

"Gordon, it's us!", he panted.

Gordon only moaned and continued struggling. With a twist of his body he managed to escape Virgil's grip – Virgil is strong, but Gordon is a lot more limber – fell on the stairs with a loud bang, and started running again. We called after him, but it had no effect; Gordon scrambled up the stairs as if we were the devil in person.

There was a short scramble of confusion in which Virgil and I couldn't decide who went first, then we were off again, taking three steps at a time and trying not to let him out of sight. Floor after floor we went, then we heard a door spring open. I didn't even have the time to wonder what the heck he was going to do on the roof, of all places.

Virgil barrelled through the door and I followed suit. Sweat ran down my back; stupid little brothers, if that was one of his pranks, he was so going to regret it.

"Shit!" I heard the curse, and then I ran smack into Virgil's back. He seemed to be frozen on the spot. I glanced around him to see what was happening.

And my heart stopped beating.

There was Gordon – Gordon, my little brother the almost-fish, the redhead, the joker, the guy who has a smile permanently glued to his face – and he was running, running towards the edge of the roof which was seven storeys over the ground and God, it didn't look as if he would stop, he couldn't be doing what I thought he was doing...

There was a wall, but it wasn't high enough to stop him, barely waist height, damn, that wasn't up to current security standards, the manager of the building should be thrown into prison and never let out again...if Gordon ran towards it at that pace, he'd go over in a flash. And he wasn't stopping!

Virgil must have thought the same. "STOP!" he hollered and started running again.

Gordon faltered, turned around to look at us and yelped. For the first time, I got a good look at his face. It was...scary. There wasn't even the slightest hint of recognition in it. He was panting, his eyes wide with fear, pupils almost covering the iris. "Go away," he croaked in a voice that trembled with fear and exhaustion. Behind him, I could see small people on the ground and the bulk of Thunderbird Two not far away. We should contact Scott. But I didn't want to use my communicator right now, not with the situation that serious.

"Don't move," I commanded, at the same trying to be gentle, not knowing what to expect.

Gordon laughed. Yes, he actually laughed, a wheezing, mad sound that chilled me to the bone. Then he moved again, until he bumped into the wall. I believe both Virgil and I held out breaths; that was our brother there and yet at the same time, he wasn't.

Gordon's eyes were transfixed on something I couldn't see. Whatever it was, it unsettled him a lot, for he flailed around, trying to beat empty air. "STAY AWAY!" he roared and I almost stepped forward again, hearing the agony in his voice. Virgil and I exchanged worried glances; neither of us had the slightest clue what was going on and how we were supposed to act around this new, different Gordon.

It was his eyes that scared me the most. This wasn't the brother I knew. This was the gaze of a lunatic.

"Gordon..." I began, but my voice was lost in the madness. He kept clawing at empty air, his eyes wide. "He's either mad or drugged out of his mind," I muttered, holding up my arms in the universal gesture of peace. There wasn't any other explanation for this. Gordon may have been a bit on the weird side, but he was always calm in the face of danger. So that meant that he didn't know what he was doing – and he was standing only a couple of feet away from a seven storey drop...

Fear clenched my heart.

"Virgil!" I hissed.

"I know!" he sounded pained.

And then, to make matters complete, Scott's voice sounded from my wrist comm. "John? What the hell are you doing? And where's Gordon?"

"We're having a bit of a problem here, Scott." I whispered urgently, my eyes not leaving Gordon.

"Problem? What kind-?"

"It's Gordon. Something messed with his head. Can't explain right now," I cut him off, "He is – oh no, what now?"

While I had been speaking, Gordon had stopped thrashing around. Instead he squared his shoulders, glared at us with contempt on his face and cursed. "The hell! I'm not giving up like this!"

He looked dead serious. Once more I wished I knew what he thought he would be giving up. And then...then he turned around and climbed the damn wall!

"NO!" Virgil and I lunged forward at the same time. Gordon wobbled away from us and we stopped like a deer caught in headlights. It was quite obvious that our approach was scaring him. We couldn't afford to scare him, one wrong movement and he was dead. He needed to stay calm, only he wasn't, he was on the verge of hyperventilating, I could feel it!

I honestly can't put into words what I was feeling that moment. Seeing my brothers in danger is one thing; but seeing them in the process of killing themselves is something else entirely. Suddenly, everything else became unimportant. I heard only the thudding of my heart, my eyes fixed on the swaying madman that had once been my brother. He couldn't...if he fell...if he died...I would never forgive myself. Hell, we had already nearly lost him once, and even though Gordon can be one of the most irritating people I know, I was not ready to face that again.

"Get down from there!" Panic made my throat raw. But he didn't hear me.

"Any quick plan in mind?" Virgil whispered beside me.

"Sorry, no." I swallowed against the dry lump in my throat. "Try to get him to recognise us?"

"Yeah...but how?"

"Gordon?" No response, but I saw him whimpering. The strength seemed to be draining from his body. He...wobbled. And I...I could see it all too clearly. Him, falling backwards, tumbling over the wall and right into his death, while Virgil and I tried to catch him, only to grasp at empty air. "Gordon, it's me!" I whispered, pleadingly.

Gordon just stared. Have you ever had the feeling where you knew that this is it – the moment that will change everything?

Have you ever experienced the fear that goes hand in hand with it? The helplessness? The despair?

I knew – felt it with such a burning intensity that it hurt – and I couldn't stop wondering. What if he really wanted to jump? What if he wanted to commit suicide? I didn't believe it, not for one second – not Gordon, not him, he's too strong, too cheerful – and yet I wondered, and God, it hurt, because it meant that we had failed, I had failed and I-

Virgil's breath hitched and he grabbed my arm, as tense as uncoiled spring. "He's going to die," he said, and there was a sudden, chilling finality in that tone.

My throat felt dry. "No," I pleaded. "He can't..."

Gordon had stopped moving. He looked lost, like a little child, and I ached to gather him in my arms, like I had done when we were little and the tears wouldn't dry. But both Virgil and I were aware of the invisible boundary that separated us from our younger brother. Time froze, while he swayed and swayed and pitched forward...

And then a miracle occurred.

Even today, I honestly can't explain what exactly happened in those three seconds. The only thing I know is that one moment, Gordon was on the verge of falling – and the next, he held out his hand to the empty air in front of him, a soft half-smile on his face, and moved gracefully down from the wall. I held my breath – didn't dare to look away – until his feet were touching solid ground. Then we rushed forward, with the firm intention of pinning him down, holding him, doing everything to prevent him from jumping – only to catch him as he folded up like a card house in the wind.

"Shit," I heard Virgil swear and then I had my hands full with an unconscious Gordon

Later:

I only allowed myself to relax after we had safely lifted off. Gordon was strapped down in Thunderbird Two's sickbay, after we had evaluated that he had indeed been drugged, by some freak accident in the biochemistry department. The doctor on-site had assured as that he would be fine, that the drug just needed time to work itself out of his system. It had been a relief to hear, because deep inside, a tiny part of me had kept on insisting that Gordon had gone nuts.

Only when Thunderbird Two lifted off and I was sitting in the sickbay with my brother, staring at his face as if I'd never see him again, was I finally able to wind down.

Gordon had been quiet at first, but now he started mumbling and thrashing his head around as if he was dreaming. Occasionally I caught snatches; I had to snicker at a couple of them. It seemed as if drugs loosened the tongue of the little devil.

"John?" Virgil's voice came from the comm.

"Yeah?"

"How's he?"

"Doing better." I chuckled as another random phrase was directed at me (something about rabbits and toenails). "Actually, he's very talkative."

"Really?" Virgil sounded interested. "What about?"

"Well, he-" I paused, listening again. "Gee, those are pretty weird dreams. And he just confessed to setting my wardrobe on fire."

Virgil thought for a while. "You do realise that we now have the perfect opportunity to blackmail him?"

I stared at Gordon and felt a grin stretch my face. "Yes. Isn't it great?"

Fin.